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Leaders must speak clearly on abortion

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The vast majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal, at least under some circumstances. Yet many politicians who support legal abortion continue to struggle with how to articulate that support in a compelling and meaningful way -- regardless of their party affiliation. Rudy Giuliani's latest troubles in navigating that rocky terrain provide only the most recent example.

Although abortion can be a difficult issue to address, talking about it shouldn't be this hard. There are several clear and simple points our leaders can make when explaining why they want to maintain legal access to abortion.

- Put abortion in context. Reproductive health and rights are about more than abortion. They include a full range of policies that enable people to become parents and to parent with dignity, to decide whether or when to have children, to have healthy pregnancies and to create safe and healthy families and relationships. Safe, legal and affordable abortion care is an important component of this agenda, but it is far from the only one.

- Acknowledge that abortion is a values issue. There are good, moral reasons to be in favor of legal, safe and affordable access to all reproductive health services, including abortion. Such a position protects people's health, builds stronger families and helps women achieve their full potential in society. While recognizing that passions run deep on these issues, politicians who support reproductive and sexual rights should discuss the reasons for their support openly and honestly.

- Recognize that each woman's circumstances are unique. Women who have abortions do so based upon what they determine is best for their particular life and family circumstances, in accordance with their own values and conscience. Respecting the right of people to make their own decisions is a fundamental American value, and most Americans can accept someone's decision to end a pregnancy even if they would not make that same decision themselves.

- Talk about prevention. With approximately 3 million unplanned pregnancies a year, the U.S. has one of the highest rates in the industrialized world. Although there are several strategies for reducing unintended pregnancy, we know that contraception is our most effective tool and expanded access to contraception should be a key component of any serious effort to accomplish that goal.

Talk about prevention. With approximately 3 million unplanned pregnancies a year, the U.S. has one of the highest rates in the industrialized world. Although there are several strategies for reducing unintended pregnancy, we know that contraception is our most effective tool and expanded access to contraception should be a key component of any serious effort to accomplish that goal.

You'll never get the wingnuts on the far right to agree to comprehensive sex education that includes contraception.

Nor will you get them to agree to easing as far as possible the access to contraception for all women.

You'll never get the wingnuts on the far right to agree to comprehensive sex education that includes contraception.

Nor will you get them to agree to easing as far as possible the access to contraception for all women.

You might if you'd tone down the "wing nut" stuff...there's room for compromise here if the left wasn't so visceral in it's approach and so dismissive and hateful toward people's deeply held religious beliefs.

While opposition to abortion is primarily grounded in religious beliefs, the basis for keeping it legal across the country is the jurisprudence of what critics call "fashioning a nonexistent constitutional right out of penumbras and emanations". Are we really prepared to reject the "penumbral" underpinnings of Roe, such as Griswold and "right to privacy" decisions, and embrace the cramped 1980s vintage "originalist" view of the Federalist Society spouted by Scalia and Thomas, who read the Constitution as a dead document, unenlightened by the collective experience of our nation's history? I hope not.

You might if you'd tone down the "wing nut" stuff...there's room for compromise here if the left wasn't so visceral in it's approach and so dismissive and hateful toward people's deeply held religious beliefs.

There's no compromising with these people. They think their position comes from God. They arrogantly assume that their way is the only way. They want to tell other people how to live. I have no problem with people who have deeply held religious beliefs. What I take exception to is their attempt to shove those religious beliefs down everyone else's throat through our political system. Oh, and as far as being hateful goes, the right wing wrote the book on hateful.

There's no compromising with these people. They think their position comes from God. They arrogantly assume that their way is the only way. They want to tell other people how to live. I have no problem with people who have deeply held religious beliefs. What I take exception to is their attempt to shove those religious beliefs down everyone else's throat through our political system. Oh, and as far as being hateful goes, the right wing wrote the book on hateful.

It must be comfortable to be so completely certain of your ground that you KNOW the very nature of anyone who might disagree with your opinion.

I believe that the abortion issue would benefit by clear speaking from both sides, without the condemnation of opposite opinion. One thing that I found lacking in the article is any talk about the fact that the unborn child is a human being. Unless those who favor unrestricted "reproductive rights" will address this issue, there is no hope of reducing polarization.

Why? Because it is b.s. wedge issued drummed up by fringe groups. makes sense. How about we just have women vote on the issue? I don't want to read any bs commenst about how guys have right to the baby too either. Why because we work real hard for 1/2 hour and throw some baby batter into the mix? And just leave it at that. It is a personal choice and should remain that way. There is no reason to harp on this issue, none. I hoep all you pro-lifers are also vehemently opposed to the war as well as capital punishment. Because if not your just a hypocrite.

I assume you're speaking of the fact that an unborn child is a human. If not, what is it? Is it the same as fecal matter that a woman can expel whenever she likes? I don't agree with many of the pro-lifers who claim that the unborn has higher rights than the mother. But denying the fact that there is a human life inside, or claiming that it is only tissue is just silly.

No, I am refreing to the title of the article in the sentence you quoted. Why does a personal choice have to be up for a public debate? Why should someone's religious views be imposed upon everyone else?

I believe the controlling issue in abortion cases is (or ought to be) the legal principle of "standing". Who has the paramount right to make claims on behalf of the unborn child, which is wholly dependent upon and an integral part of the mother, not a separate person? Can the government as "parens patriae" override the decisions of the mother and her physician? I don't think so. Overturning Roe is cheap talk for pandering pastors and politicians, but it would require the Court to ignore the conservative judicial principle of "stare decisis" or "stand by the decision". Most constitutional scholars tend to agree that Roe is unlikely to be reversed but steadily chipped away with restrictions.

No, I am refreing to the title of the article in the sentence you quoted. Why does a personal choice have to be up for a public debate? Why should someone's religious views be imposed upon everyone else?

I don't understand the reference here. Could you repeat the title that bothered you?

As to whether an unborn child is human, I don't understand how that fact is a religious view. Could you expand on that thought?

Fine. The title of the article was "Leaders must speak clearly on abortion." My contentions was that they do not need to speak at all on the matter because it is a personal choice, thus these "leaders" shouldn't have any say in it what so ever.

As to your second question. I am undecided. The first few weeks of pregnancy a human fetus is physiologically no difference than a pig fetus. Having said that I am still on the fence whether to dub a human fetus a human being, able of sentient thought. Since, as a country we seem to only desgintate life imprtant when it is cute or marketable (i.e. babies, polar bear cubs, etc.) I find the hypocrisy of this society nauseating when you have the same peopel rallying for fetus rights and then voting for a war or the death sentence.Or. God forbid, making each issue a religious point thinking that in evoking "God" that it makes their case stronger. Maybe, if I am ever confronted with that possibility then I will have to make that decision. Oh wait! I am a man and unable to bear children. Hmmm. . . maybe it shouldn't be up to me but to the woman that actually has to carry the fetus for 9 months until maturation. Thus why do a bunch of rich, old white guys have a say in what a woman can do with their bodies? I harbor the same sentiment in suicide and drug use, guess I am a libertarian if you need pigeon holes.

Abortion should be safe, legal and rare? Nonsense; by virtue of its own terms, the "safe, legal and rare" argument for abortion is absurd.

We all know the argument that if abortions are not legal, then they won't be safe for those who get them despite the law, although this health risk together with the legal risk would make them much, much rarer. On the other hand, if abortions are legal, then the supply of abortions will meet the demand for them, resulting in abortion on demand. Consequently, the term "safe" does not agree with the term "rare".

It's obvious the argument "safe, legal and rare" tries to have its cake and eat it, too. Thus, when it is offered as a political slogan, one can only impute to the politician offering it the intention to deceive voters. Why else would suchlike support the barbarity of partial birth abortion but for fear of the domino effect that may ensue from making abortion rare?

Abortion is a values issue? Odd, because moral "values" are absurd constructs to sound moral philosophy.

The word "value" is often applied to a discrete moral principle to describe it as one of many possible moral principles. But if a moral principle is not tied to some source demanding commitment and loyalty to the moral principles issuing from it, such as God, family, tribe, community, country, etc., then it becomes a moral "value" and thus absurd, that is, founded on nothing more than personal convenience. This is so because moral "values" serve all purposes, being first derived from purpose themselves. This is why people use their moral values to justify their own purposes to others.

Because value derives from purpose, utility is an inseverable component of value, rendering it useless in the formulation of moral principles that should apply to those men who, by commitment and loyalty to some source of moral principles extrinsic to themselves, believe themselves thereby bound. My proof? Moral tolerance cannot tolerate moral intolerance for the latter's disutility to the former.

The kicker - the necessary backstop - to this argument is cost. If women are to be truly equal to men sexually, then they must be able to walk away from sex without further cost. But human biology won't permit this. So as a remedy, women must shift the cost of their unequal, that is, different biology to its effect - their offspring. Only when the law permits this cost-shifting will women be equal sexually to men.

However, when equality requires the support of the law to shift costs, as it also does in the case of affirmative action or progressive income taxation, one must consider whether the moral "values" supporting such laws are not entirely self-serving given their obvious utility to self-serving purposes.

The arguments I just offered are brutally direct, so I doubt I'll ever see them played out on the political stage. But if you vote, you'd do well to consider them rather than succumbing to soundbites intended to deceive you.

Yep. That's the tough one. My own opinion is that an unborn child is human. Then the next question becomes, "When is it to receive the same state protection as other humans?" (Clearly other humans can't just be killed at someone's whim, even the parents' whim.) That is where I lose it. I just do not know when the unborn should be provided state protection.

"While opposition to abortion is primarily grounded in religious beliefs, the basis for keeping it legal across the country is the jurisprudence of what critics call "fashioning a nonexistent constitutional right out of penumbras and emanations". Are we really prepared to reject the "penumbral" Only to the same degree that opposition to slavery(the underground railroad) and opposition to segragation(Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference) were "primarily grounded in religious belief". Such language shows much ignorance about those that subscribe to pro-life principles. Abortion is opposed for the same reason slavery and segragation were opposed; because every human being is an individual that cannot be property of another and has the right to exist without fear of being assaulted and killed simply because another human considers a younger human inferior and an impediment to his/her happiness or future goals. Commiting a homocide or hiring someone else to do it for you, because the victim's existence will inconvenience your life is not a sufficient motive. Yet statistics from the Alan Guttmacher Association(a pro-abortion research group affiliated with Parenthood) confirms that most abortions occur for non-medical reasons, therefore it is not a medical issue. Ignorance is also found in not recognizing that most anti-abortion organizations or headed by women, not men so this is not an assualt on women's rights my males and is not gender descrimination. The anti-abortion movement is a human rights movement like so many before it, like the anti-slavery and anti-descrimination movements of the past.

"Yep. That's the tough one. My own opinion is that an unborn child is human. Then the next question becomes, "When is it to receive the same state protection as other humans?" (Clearly other humans can't just be killed at someone's whim, even the parents' whim.) That is where I lose it. I just do not know when the unborn should be provided state protection."

But why is it such a "tough one" and what exactly informs your opinion that the unborn child is human? Also once you have admitted this, then "human rights" come into play. Is the freedom from assault not a "human right"? Also the notion that one human can never be the property of another human is a "human right" established for the various civil rights movements of the past. Since abortion defies this ideal, how is it justified?

Should someone be able to assault you or hire someone to assault you, because someone has found your existence to be obsticle to another human's aspirations for a job or schooling? If you didn't know, this is the reason why most abortions are performed, not because of medical reasons.

If we were talking about killing someone due to their race, gender, orientation, age, what country a human comes from, would we be asking,"should this person receive the same state protection as other humans?" Of course not, so why the hand-wringing when the question is asked in an abortion situation.

Carry it outside of abortion and ask when a homocide is considered allowable under law. Primarily it is not prosocuted when a homocide was committed in an instance when someone felt an iminent threat to ones own life and testimony and evidence is presented to show that this fear was indeed legitimate or if a homocide was committed by someone who believed a assault and serious injury was going to be done to someone else, again, with evidence to back up the accusation.

Most abortions do not fall into this catagory since abortion rights research organizations, such as the Alan Guttmacher Institute, openly and honestlyadmit and offer statistics that show that most abortions are performed because men and women believe a pregnancy will interfere with plans for career or schooling or other life opportunites. Not medical threat to life or health.

Would a local District Attorney accept as "reasonable cause" for assault resulting in a homocide the motive that ,the victim was standing in the way of career or job opportinities in the future, and therefore the assailant felt he/she had no choice but to take the life of the victim and that this was "reasonable cause"? I don't think so.

Many say, "this issue should be left up to women and their doctors", but both the women asking for abortions and the doctors are not using the "reasonable cause" standard when deciding whether the innocent human shall be killed, for no other reason than because that unborn human's existence in inconvenient at the time nor does the law even allow for the asking for a reason for the execution of the child because this is covered under "medical confidentiality" even if the killing had no medical reason at all.

So the question of why the youngest of humans shouldn't be covered under laws against assault and homocide is really in the court of the abortionists and the pro-abortionists to justify and yet their usual retort is that, "look, it's legal so I'm going to have them until they are made illegal, but I will fight tooth and nail to make sure they are never made illegal regardless of the evidence of the humanity of the victims (the human in the womb)".